Figure 1. Donald W. Seldin, MD, during the interview. turned to the USA in 1948 and joined the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale. In 1951, he came to Dallas as an associate professor in the Department of Medicine of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Within a year he was professor and chairman of the department, and he served in that position until 1987. In 1969, he was named the William Buchanan Professor of Internal Medicine, and in 1988 he became the University of Texas System Professor of Internal Medicine in the same department.

During his 37 years as chairman, Dr. Seldin built one of the 3 or 4 strongest departments of medicine in the world. When Seldin became chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in January 1952, he was its only full-time member. When he stepped down in 1987, the medical faculty was 125 times larger. At the same time, he was a highly productive researcher and one of the world’s finest medical statesmen.